


Today's News

by Rubynye



Category: Star Trek XI
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Genderswap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-19
Updated: 2010-09-19
Packaged: 2017-10-12 11:49:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/124528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rubynye/pseuds/Rubynye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lenora tells Jim the news.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Today's News

**Author's Note:**

> Extensive, at the end

Title: Today's News  
Fandom: Star Trek XI  
Rating: PG-13  
Pairing: Jim Kirk / Lenora McCoy  
Summary: Lenora tells Jim the news.  
Prompts: Commentfic for a photo post at [](http://community.livejournal.com/jim_and_bones/profile)[**jim_and_bones**](http://community.livejournal.com/jim_and_bones/), and based on [this prompt](http://buckleup-meme.livejournal.com/5309.html?thread=241853#t241853) at [](http://buckleup-meme.livejournal.com/profile)[**buckleup_meme**](http://buckleup-meme.livejournal.com/), though I can't really call it a fill.  
Content Advisory: Genderswap, het, AU setting.  
Acknowledgements: [](http://community.livejournal.com/jim_and_bones/profile)[**jim_and_bones**](http://community.livejournal.com/jim_and_bones/) for being wonderful.  
 _Disclaimer:_ None of these characters or their settings belong to me.  
Author's Note: Extensive, and in the first comment.

"Jim, I'm back from town," Lenora calls, stepping into the back room of her house. The guest room, Jake had called it back when it was their house, but between her schedule and his cussedness they rarely had any to speak of. Now for the past month, ever since finding her after that ridiculous riverboat cruise, this sunny-smiling _boy's_ set up camp in her back room, and despite all sense and the doubtful eyebrows of both Christine and her Mom, Lenora hasn't booted him yet.

She tells them it's because Jim needs a place to stay while he works to establish himself in Enterprise, saving money from odd jobs towards a business whose shape keeps changing every time he describes it. She tells herself it's because the house is too big, because he was good company on the boat and he's good company now, because as good a game she talks of independence it's nice to have a man around to reach things and move things. She doesn't let herself remember until each midnight that he somehow unerringly knows which nights to sleep on the dropclothed sofa in the cluttered back room and which to slip upstairs into her bed and kiss her, starting behind her ear and working his way down.

Damn foolishness, she'd've called this in any patient who came to her with such a story, and damn foolishness she called it to herself as she stomped around her office cursing, safe on a Sunday afternoon when everyone else was sleeping off the church luncheon. It is, but it's hard to remember when she stands in the doorway taking in the sight of Jim draped along her sofa, booted ankles crossed and a football between his long graceful hands. "Hey, Bones," he murmurs, smiling up at the football as if he hasn't a care in the world.

Unfortunately, he's about to. The whole drive back, Lenora rehearsed a half different ways to say this, but her tongue sticks to her palate so she just holds out a printout. (It's a Sunday, but Nyota only gave her one stern glance over her glasses before relenting with a wide smile and letting Lenora into the library anyway.) Jim repeats her stupid nickname, starting to look a little worried, and glances over. His eyebrows fly up as he sits up, snagging the paper from her hand, and do a consternated little wiggle as he reads.

When he looks up at her he's all charm again, blue eyes bright in the golden afternoon light, so before he can say one more word to sucker her Lenora talks over him. "Kirk's your mamma's family name, Jim. Or rather, Prince James Tiberius Grimaldi Thermopolis of Genovia?" She considers adding a sarcastic curtsey but she'd probably fall over.

"Huh," Jim says. and shuts his mouth, and Lenora does not let herself notice how good bafflement looks on him. He pats the couch beside him but she shakes her head, staying in the doorway, keeping distance. He swallows -- she watches the red mark on his larynx bob, he stayed home from church because she forgot herself and bit him there Friday night -- and looks up at her with blue puppy's eyes. "Lenora," he says, his accent gone proper and European and a million miles from here, and already she can't stand it. "I was -- "

"Don't say you were gonna tell me," Lenora snaps, and she should let him explain, but she just can't stand that accent, everything he hasn't been with her, everything he really is. "'Cause you weren't. And don't say you'll take me away from all of this, because _this_ is my life, Jim! I'm a doctor, not a princess!" Her arms are in the air and he's starting to smile and this is serious, goddammit, so she points at him. "And you're a prince, not a goddamn fucking farmhand! What are you even doing here? Don't you have, I don't know, a kingdom to run?"

"Actually," Jim says, and he's back to that flat-sunshine California accent she can't keep from being soothed by, "I don't have much to do. Sam's the heir, I'm the spare." He shrugs. "I figured I'd do something else."

"Thought you'd wander the Earth, find cranky divorced women to shack up with?" Lenora waves her hands once more in exasperation. "I didn't find this out all on my own, you know. My Mam said you looked familiar, so did Scott when I took the car in last week. They thought you might be an escaped convict." Jim chuckles until Lenora growls. "You think it's funny? If I can find you so can any two-bit reporter looking to fill the front page on a slow news day! And that's not even the worst of it."

Jim looks a little worried then, and pats the couch again. "Bones? Come sit down? Please?"

Lenora tries to stand straighter, until she feels herself sway. She gives in and sits beside him, and when he wraps his arm around her she slumps against his side. "I didn't stay after church for the library," she mutters, looking at her sanitizer-chapped hands, not at his knees, not at all at his face. "That was just a side trip. I stayed to swing by my clinic."

"Are you okay?" Jim asks, and there's real, hushed concern there. Lenora feels like throwing up again, and laughs instead.

"Healthy enough," she tells him. "Also, pregnant."

 

 _**Today's News (Star Trek XI, AU, PG-13)** _

 

**Author's Note:**

> So, um, sorry for the cliffhanger. The problem is, I can't come up with What Happens Next, at least not in any non-Big-Bang-length way.
> 
> My goal is for Lenora to lose neither Jim nor Enterprise; she's right that this is her life, just jettisoning it wouldn't be fair. My roommate suggested that the Genovians kidnap Jim back and Lenora goes after him, but that didn't gel in my head. I pondered having Enterprise destroyed during the Eugenics Wars (this is not actually meant to be a present-day AU but a near-future one) and its population all rescued and taken to Genovia, but that would be a huge tale I'm not quite up to telling.
> 
> So right now Jim and Lenora are sitting on that couch, on the edge of quantum possibilities, and for the time being I thought I'd put this fragment of fic out there to hopefully amuse. **ETA** Now with a sequel, [News Flash](http://archiveofourown.org/works/124528)!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [News Flash](https://archiveofourown.org/works/138566) by [Rubynye](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rubynye/pseuds/Rubynye)
  * [News Flash](https://archiveofourown.org/works/138566) by [Rubynye](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rubynye/pseuds/Rubynye)




End file.
